FOR THE PLEASURE OF YOUR COMPANY

What could I possibly ask for in life?

I've chalked up some mileage, seen some births, and known some deaths. I've had seasons of giving, but also been blessed with much receiving. I've known no real poverty, but seen and touched it first hand in others, and in my own spirit. I am rich mostly in things of the heart: the kindness of others, their generosity of regard, their grace in the face of my deficiencies. Life has been very full in some moments; I can also say that there were times of wreckage and searing sorrow. But all moments of crisis and glory pass, as they always do, with the passage of time; and I reside still in that top one percent of the world's civilised population who know no real lack; I have been privileged and am thankful, and should really not ask for more. So what could I possibly want?

As a child, first aware of self and personhood, there was always a sense of uncertainty about myself. I don't know if that is common among all children, but I nursed a secret fear of inadequacy, and felt that I was always thrown out into public view before time, and ahead of readiness to 'perform" whatever it is that I was supposed to do. For most of my adult life, I continued to feel somehow incomplete, a work in progress, yet to become what I'm to become.

I've looked for that final part of myself as I grew, went outside of family, left home, attended school, set off on my solo travels, entered marriage and assumed motherhood. Finally I even ventured into hallowed spaces of the Church - where I'm told the tenets relating to the origin of all life and meaning resides. I thought I might find an answer in all these places and times. I've gone in to each with eyes wide open, the tiny hairs on my arms all bristling and expectant, looking out for that last piece of jigsaw puzzle which would finally complete me as me.

The irony is, I didn't even know what that piece looked like. I'd thought, maybe it was faith-shaped, or deed relevant, or works formed. Maybe if I studied lots, talked the talk and walked the walk, I could convince everyone, including myself - that I was me! Or maybe all that was required was for me to do the deeds, accomplish the work targets, attain a certain level of credibility and faithfulness; and then I would know who I was at last. I explored whether it was in the raising and nurturing of other lives that I would then find the true meaning to my own. Children, church goers racked with guilt, the broken people of the world who needed some kind of reviving. So I invested hours and days and years of my own life into other people; raised my kids, taught the young, prayed for the sick, visited the bereaved and elderly. Lately I even took on the homeless and the rough sleeping in mean city streets. Did I think that if I homed the homeless, I would discover my own nesting place of wholeness? Or if I smoothed over a rough sleeper, then I could finally sleep myself with peace and in total abandonment, because I had become the final version, assumed at last the ultimate copy of the person I was supposed to be?

But no. That missing piece eluded me. It wasn't in a marriage, or children, or church; it wasn't in anything I could do or think or say. My missing piece of myself, was you.

It hadn't even occurred to me that this was the case. You see, I hadn't gone looking for you. I was looking for me! Or if I had an inkling that the missing part of myself lay in another who could mirror and echo, then I'd been foraging in the wrong places, and expecting a completely different outcome altogether. Until we met that is, really met - in our eyes, our words, our silences; finally in our hearts.

Then, something clicked. Like a switch was flicked and I saw for the first time, clearly. As though I'd had nothing but a blurred vision, a dimmed take on everything through my entire life. Like a veil had been drawn to partially obscure something, and suddenly the curtain had lifted to reveal what had been hidden all along. The colours became so stunning and sharp I had to blink, pinch myself that it was not surreal, nor a mere figment of my own imaginings.

What fooled me was that it wasn't obvious. You grew quietly on me, and slowly invaded my life. I don't even remember meeting you the first time. Later, you sent me work related emails. And somewhere in the spaces between the lines, between other-focussed discussions, we started a wordless conversation all of our own, like a low hum in the background, a sweet base note that reverberated deep within ourselves. Then at times, you rang on the phone to discuss more work. And in between the pauses there it was again - our private, unspoken dialogue. Eventually you actually appeared in person, and I saw for myself what those gaps and pauses looked like. Once or twice, I caught a look in your eyes, or your small smile at me; and it caused me to pause, to attempt to register, capture something. But it was too fleeting, so elusive.

Yet I knew somehow, that a drawbridge from each of our guarded hearts had lowered, and a connection, a recognition had occurred.

One unexpected night we finally met, not as colleagues, but as ourselves - a man and a woman. Not quite in full, but for real. All of a sudden, that last missing piece, the one that would finally make sense of me, that would complete the picture, dot the i and cross the t - began to fall into place. At the time, I was caught by surprise. I'd long given up on my quest, because I'd failed for so long and had lost heart and motivation to keep looking. It felt as though my insides were a maze of darkened caverns, and in the little things that we said to one another, agreed on or acknowledged together - a candle was lit one by one in my secret inner chambers, until I started to glow with a long yearned-for light. Over time, I started to feel something I had never noticed before: I was alive.

Since we began our walk alongside each other, every occasion we've spent together over work, leisure, a country amble or a meal - made me awaken to the notion that I was content. To be allowed to be myself, with my own odd thoughts and peculiar choices; yet to be aware of and open to your world, and your particular preferences and idiosyncrasies - and to see how we flowed and fed the other, became such a delight. I smiled all the time. I walked and did not feel I touched the ground. I quicken when I am with you. Even with our places of difference and times of divergence, there was an ease about things, that it was alright to hold independent as well as tacitly agreed positions. We accepted each other, and therein were found sparks of joy, and of life as it is meant to be when two halves complement, and we became more than the sum of our parts.

They say that you never really know something for real until it leaves you, and you realise that you missed it. It has become second nature for me to have your voice, your touch and your presence in so much of my world, that once those things are removed, my whole universe shook and threatened to cave in, until you returned. At such times, it feels as thought I'd lost something of my own - like my flesh, like my shadow; I would keep turning round to look for where I would lean against you but not find you there. Or I would lower my head so our foreheads would touch, and not find that warmth which emanates from you into me. My hands wouldn't know what to do by themselves - as they had no home to nest into or rest against in your clasp, so they would flail listlessly in space. They would grow very very cold.

How could I ever survive again, with a part of myself missing? How do I get found when I've got so very lost searching again for you? It's like being a cat with its whiskers cruelly trimmed so it would lose balance and a sense of perspective, then continually bump into door jambs as it tries to pass through. I cannot bear the silence, the real silence in my life now devoid of conversation with you. No voice that laughs at my foolishness, or teases my conceits, or whispers sweet nothings into a warm ear. I bear myself rigid as a pillar of stone, when I haven't got you beside me so I could melt into the crook of your arm, and rest my head against your collarbone.

These moments of utter lack are seminal, and draw with crystal clarity what my life until this point must be about: that the part of myself that has always been missing since birth, is the soulmate that is found in you. Unless we connect, until we do, I will always be incomplete, insufficient, inconsolable. No faith, no works, no deeds - or the judgements and accolades which these might attract - could fill or fulfil me. No time, no season, no moment of great revelation of my calling, or distance from my destiny, would really mean very much to me any more. Each day merges into the next, becomes the same: empty, lived in shadows. It is all very well to have philosophy and theology, to have high minded concerns and lofty ideals. But I have come to understand that life is to be found and savoured in the every day, in the every moment spent with the one person sought for since our beginning. Doesn't the popular song go:

"Don't know much about history
Don't know much biology
Don't know much about science book
Don't know much about the French I took

But I do know that I love you
And I know that if you love me too
What a wonderful world this would be

Don't know much geography
Don't know much trigonometry
Don't know much about algebra
Don't know what a slide rule is for

But I know that one and one is two
And if this one could be with you
What a wonderful world this would be..." (Sam Cooke)

It matters not to me where we would be, as long as we are beside each other in our walks, in our journeys. I hunger to taste the world with you as we travel through it. It matters not what we might each do, or do together, as long as we can back the other in whatever we have set our hearts and hands to. And in the evenings of our lives, to be able to sit with hands held over a fragrant pot of sweet spiced tea, to jointly ponder the day just past, forgiving each other's unintended trespasses, and to laugh at the world's curiosities and folly. So what is it that I want out of this life, for the rest of my life? Nothing more, my love, my darling - than the simple pleasure of your abiding company.